The invention disclosed herein pertains to a machine for inserting groups of articles into containers and concurrently removing groups of articles from other containers and sending the removed articles and containers with other articles to separate destinations.
Continuously operating machines that are dedicated to packing articles, such as filled and crowned beverage bottles, into containers such as cases, cartons or crates or are dedicated to unpacking of articles such as empty returnable bottles from containers are known as, for example, in German patent specification DE OS 41 25 573. These individual, but continuously operating, machines have replaced the earlier widely used intermittently operating machines. It has been recognized as disadvantageous, however, that such individually dedicated machines can be used either, only as packers that insert articles in containers, or as unpackers that withdraw articles from containers. In beverage filling production lines, this requires two separate packing machines that are each compatible, insofar as speed is concerned, with other operations in the production line. In connection with intermittently operating packing machines, consideration has been given to performing packing and unpacking in a single machine as demonstrated in German Patent Application DE OS 24 60 957, but no one heretofore has implemented performing both basic functions in a continuously operating single machine. As indicated, individual machines that handle articles and containers intermittently are considered obsolete because they are incompatible with continuously operating production lines.